Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.”   (Dt. 30: 19-20)

The new proclamation and acceptance of the law amidst a people who had, in some way, given up God’s commandments and who again want to be under the loving yoke of the Lord must be done in a way that leaves a deep impression.

Letter of Eugene de Mazenod to Fr. Bruno Guigues, 5 November 1837, EO IX n 652 

REFLECTION

Dear Lord,

Today, I choose life. I choose to follow you always. Help me to know you more as I journey through Lent. Increase my faith and trust in you in all my hard situations. Help me to hear your voice guiding me and correcting me as I spend time in prayer during Lent.

Help me to make the right choices when it is so hard to do. Help me to hold fast to You when I am tired and weak. Today Lord, I choose life by choosing to make you my life.

Amen.

Adapted from: https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/your-daily-prayer/a-prayer-to-choose-life.html

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Cor. 5: 20)

“Yes, my brothers, come, and you will see with what joy we will help you to take up your yoke that will seem too heavy only for the first few moments of your conversion, for when once you are freed from sin, light will take the place of the deep shadows that reigned in your souls, God will seem so lovable to you, he will fill your hearts with so great a consolation.”

Eugene de Mazenod’s sermon to the poor of Aix en Provence, 1813

REFLECTION

Each year you bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the paschal feast.

By more faithful prayer and works of charity and by celebrating the mysteries of our rebirth, we are led to the fullness of grace as your sons and daughters.

(Preface for Lent I, Sacramentary)

Arrival of Fr. Lempfrit, a Carthusian whom the Pope transferred to our congregation, placing him under obedience to me. This Father requested to enter our congregation in order to dedicate himself to the conversion of indigenous people; he brought with him a Brother who had left the Carthusians before having made profession therein in order to follow the same vocation. The Father had not at all left the order of Carthusians for reason of discontentment or of lack of stability, but only because he could not resist the powerful attraction which compelled him to evangelize the native peoples.

Diary of Eugene de Mazenod, 14 January 1847, EO XXI

The Brother was the 25 year-old Italian, Gaspare De Steffanis, who was the first Oblate Brother to go to Jaffna, where he would be a missionary for 31 years.

REFLECTION

Guide my path, Lord.

Send me among the people you have made, Whether across the globe or across the street.

Give me the grace to be welcomed in

And the courage to stand out.

May my words compel

As they invoke your spirit.

May my acts shine

As they demonstrate your faithfulness.

Catholic Relief Services

Letter from Brother Blanchet. He also requests of me to go to the foreign missions.

Diary of Eugene de Mazenod, 13 January 1847, EO XXI

Twenty-nine-year-old, Georges Blanchet was one of the first Oblate Brothers to be sent to the United States in 1847. Twenty five years later, at the insistence of the local Bishop, he was ordained to the priesthood in British Columbia. He died, aged 88, and a river and a lake in British Columbia were named after him.

REFLECTION

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.”   (Roland Allen)

God of Heaven and Earth,

You have fed me your word

And sent me forth to love and serve.

A missionary, you have called me to be. Even in my smallness and sin

You chose me to sing the song of your love, The hymn of your mercy,

The anthem of your justice.

Catholic Relief Services

On 17 February the Mazenodian Family marks the day when in 1826 Pope Leo XII, after a process of discernment, recognized that the group brought into existence by Eugene de Mazenod was a creation of God. Eugene understood the

steady determination of the Holy Father, whom nothing has been able to prevent from the first thought with which the Holy Spirit inspired him on the first day that I knelt at his feet and presented to him the plan of this enterprise which now we can call divine…

Letter to all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226

The Pope recognized that it is a charism of the Holy Spirit. So it is an act of God that we celebrate!

For ten years this small group of men had survived by their founding vision, surviving hardships, persecution, defections and near-extermination, and yet never giving up. They believed that their vocation came from God, that their ideal was God-inspired and that their mission to the most-abandoned was God-given. The discernment of the Church confirmed this and injected new life and vigor into them. It was not meant to degenerate into a moment of back-slapping backward-looking community festivity. It was an injection of divine life that propelled the Oblates.

REFLECTION

May this 17 February be a moment of grace to rediscover the value of our God-given life as calling us into courageous new horizons

May it be a moment to give thanks for the gift of over 200 years of dedicated service of bring the Gospel to the most abandoned.

May it be a grace-filled moment to re-value, at our local levels, a Mazenodian family, where every way of life receives and is equally important in belonging and cooperating in God’s gift of the charism.

Eugene shared the wonderful news from Rome with his Oblate family in France:

My dear brothers, on February 17, 1826, yesterday evening, the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XII confirmed the decision of the congregation of Cardinals and specifically approved the Institute, the Rules and Constitutions of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, and accompanied this solemn act of his pontifical power, with most admiring words for those who happily form this Society from which the head of the Church indeed expects the greatest good.

The conclusion to be drawn from this, my dear friends and good brothers, is: we must work, with renewed ardour and still more total devotedness, to bring to God all the glory that stems from our efforts and, to the needy souls of our neighbours, salvation in all possible ways…  In the name of God, let us be saints.

Letter to the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226

REFLECTION

O God, we are filled with gratitude for your call to participate in the life and charism of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. This vocation, first inspired in Saint Eugene de Mazenod, is a gift for the life of the Church.

By this charism we have a special relationship with Jesus the Saviour, whose Cross reveals your unconditional love for all humanity, especially for the poor and most abandoned. Through the Mazenodian charism we also are brought into close communion with the poor, and we discover that we are evangelized by those to whom we have been sent.

We thank you for the grace of our vocation, praying that we live it in faithfulness and joy through the intercession of Mary Immaculate and in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

A reminder to join us as we explore what it means to live the gift of God as part of a charism family.

The lecture will be broadcast live and also recorded for those in different time zones. In order to participate (and to see the recording later) you are asked to register so that a link can be sent to you: https://ost.edu/event/enlarging-the-tent/

News of the successful Oblate missions in England and Canada inspired young Oblates to want to join them.

Eugene wrote in his diary:

Letter from Brother Cauvin. He is requesting me with great insistence to send him to the foreign missions.

Diary of Eugene de Mazenod, 13 January 1847, EO XXI

Twenty-two-year-old, Eugene Cauvin, was sent to Canada the following year

REFLECTION

“God, send me anywhere, only go with me.

Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.

And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.”

David Livingstone

Reflecting on the zealous achievements of his missionary family, Eugene exclaimed:

What is remarkable is that these marvels are accomplished by our men who attribute to Mary Immaculate all these great things

Letter to Fr Hippolyte Courtès in Aix en Provence, 11 January 1847, EO X n 920

REFLECTION

“Mary Immaculate… received Christ in order to share him with the world, whose hope he is. In her, we recognize the model of the Church’s faith and of our own” (OMI Constitution 10)

Mary, teacher of faith, who by your obedience to the Word of God cooperated in a remarkable way with the work of redemption, help us to listen to the Word and to put it into practice today.